The mayor of the city of Atlanta, Georgia, Andre Dickens, and his delegation traveled to Addis Ababa on an official visit to launch the new direct flight to Atlanta on Ethiopian Airlines. During his visit, the mayor and the delegation conducted several meetings to explore potential areas for future collaboration in both the cultural and business spaces.
Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, Chargé d’Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, joined Mayor Dickens and representatives from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport as well as senior members of the Ethiopian Government at Bole International Airport for the inaugural flight of Ethiopian Airlines’ new direct flight from Addis Ababa to Atlanta, Georgia– its sixth direct U.S. destination.
During his remarks at the launch, Mayor Dickens expressed optimism about potential business prospects between Atlanta and Addis Ababa, noting that the City of Atlanta will continue to explore the Ethiopian market and invest in a wide range of business opportunities for long-term success. While he was in Ethiopia, Mayor Dickens met with Mayor Adanech Abiebie of Addis Ababa to discuss ways their two cities could continue to collaborate to promote shared prosperity.

UNECA Office in North Africa and the Association of Women Entrepreneurs of Morocco (AFEM) held a webinar on “Female entrepreneurship in North Africa: the role of finance and digital skills.” This was the first in the series of policy dialogues towards fostering productive female entrepreneurship in North Africa that the Office will organize in 2023, with the next webinar set for June 7th.
Participants underscored the need to seize new opportunities for encouraging female entrepreneurship to ensure inclusive and resilient crisis recovery in North Africa. One such area is the accelerated digitalization that the Covid-19 pandemic brought about. It underscored the importance of digital skills for women’s effective production, marketing and management as well as for use of digital finance and e-commerce.
The webinar emphasized that given the wide spectrum of constraints that women entrepreneurs face, policymakers, financial sector institutions and development partners need to adopt a multiple-pronged approach to address them. A conducive business environment is important, including stable macroeconomic conditions with monetary policy allowing for adequate supply of credit to the private sector.